Pope Benedict XVI receives the book "Light of the World" from its writer, German journalist Peter Seewald, during a meeting at the Vatican in November 2010. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

Remarks from German journalist Peter Seewald about the
state of Pope Benedict’s health have received wide circulation since the
publication of an article yesterday in German and Italian magazines. Seewald,
who conducted two book-length interviews with the Holy Father and is working on
his official biography, met with Benedict last summer and noted
that “[his] hearing had gone down,
he was blind in the left eye, his body had grown thinner,” adding, “I
had never seen him so exhausted.”

Those details
about the Holy Father’s physical condition understandably have received a good
deal of attention; just as interesting, but less widely noted, is what Seewald
has to say about Benedict and last year’s “Vatileaks” scandal, which was thought
by many to have been a major factor in the Pope’s decision to resign. From Catholic
News Service:

[Seewald] denied that the 2012 "VatiLeaks" scandal
had been a reason for the pontiff's resignation and said Pope Benedict had
merely voiced incomprehension at the decision of his former butler, Paolo
Gabriele, to leak information.

"It's true the butler's betrayal was a painful
experience," Seewald told the Munich-based Focus, which was launched in
1993 and is Germany's third-largest weekly.

"But it certainly didn't influence his decision in any
important way. In our 90-minute talk at Castel Gandolfo last August, the pope
said he felt neither despair nor despondency. ... It was very important for the
pope that the VatiLeaks exposure would ensure an independent judiciary in the
Vaticanthat there wouldn't be a situation in which the monarch said he was
taking the matter in his own hands."

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